WHAT IS DUTCH LIKE ?
Sit,—In your issue of November 19th appeared a letter to you on what Dutch is like. That letter contained a translation into reputed Dutch of a sentence from Hamlet. I may have missed the point, but the facts are that the first three words of the translation are German and therefore not Dutch. The last two words, although spelled in the German manner, sound like Dutch of a somewhat silly kind, as if Shakespeare had written about "thy daddy's spook." I have no published Dutch translation at hand, but in proper Dutch the sentence quoted would read like this: " Ik ben je vaders geest."
There is no cause to be unduly disturbed by the fact that some people's sense of humour is more developed than their knowledge of foreign languages. Your correspondent's letter does show, however, in what manner Germans are conducting an incessant whispering campaign to ridicule or vilify one allied nation in the eyes of the other. This is not the first time we in this country get the impression that some Military Government officials are inclined to fall for that kind of propaganda. In the same manner we have to contend with the kind of stories Germans spread amongst our countrymen and whereby they try to place the occupying authorities in a ridiculous or unsavoury light. In any case you may, Sir, rest assured that the average Dutchman knows enough of your language that he will not swallow stories like your correspondent's, and that no paper in this country would publish a letter thus needlessly offensive as your correspondent's.—Yours faithfully,
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